Masteries

Offense:
21

Defense:
0

Utility:
9

Introduction

Thank you for visiting my guide: Jarvan IV: LoL Highschool Bully. This build is based around using Jarvan IV as a Tank DPS. Playing this role as Jarvan, to me, is one of the best ways to play him. You have skills that decrease armor, increase your health, AoE slow, initiate/disrupts and bonus attack speed and armor to you and your allies. Playing this role also helps you to stay into the fray longer allowing you to use your passive more over the course of a somewhat long team fight (10-15 seconds.) Now enough with why you should play him as a Tank DPS and get to the breakdown.

Pros / Cons

Cons
-Pretty slow
-Kind of weak survivability early game
-Hard to use ulti

Summoner Spells

As you can see above, I use Summoner Spells Exaust and Ignite. Exaust to keep them from running and Ignite just in case they're that tick away from dying and I know I can't persue them any longer. You could probably replace one of these with other spells too if you wish:

Ghost - Jarvan is a fairly slow champion, even with boots so I can see where Ghost would help, but that's what the combo is there for. If it helps you, then by all means use it, but I never have.
Teleport - Again, Jarvan is a slow champion. Find a ward, Heim turret or minion near the team fight and now you're in the fray!
Flash - I suppose this could help with other champions that are getting away and you're totally out of reach, but I don't think it's a spell worth using for Jarvan. It can help you escape, persue and set-up ganks, but the ulti is usually enough for me and the combo is good for escaping. Your preference.
Clarity - Could be used with Jarvan, especially since he's one of the first people that will be dealing with the brunt of the punishment for initiating. Helps to persue and escape also with champs with disables to stop you.
Clarity, Fortify, Clairvoyance - Not for Jarvan. Save it for the Supports.

Runes and Masteries

9 Greater Mark of Desolation - I use this for added Armor Penetration. Whatever your Dragon Strike doesn't remove, you can penetrate through the rest.

9 Greater Seal of Resilience - I use this for added armor for early game when you're harrassing people with your skill combo. It helps to keep your health up enough so that it's above the enemies health after running back behind your creeps early game.

9 Greater Glyph of Focus - I use this for... Cooldown Reduction. Being able to use your skills more in team fights will give you all a better chance at winning the fight should it be on equal terms.

My mastery set-up is 21/0/9:

OFFENSIVE
Deadliness - Just because you have no other option as a Physical DPS up there. Crits also always help when it comes out.
Cripple - Because I suggested an Exaust Summoner Spell. A longer Exaust gives you a bit more time to chase and kill the opponent.
Sorcery - Used to compliment your CDR runes.
Archaic Knowledge - Since your passive and Demacian Standard deal magic damage (dispite what the patch notes say,) this would help your damage output.
Sunder - To compliment your Armor Penetration Runes.
Offensive Mastery - To help with last hitting minions sooner.
Lethality - Increased Critical strike are always a good thing.
Havoc - Extra damage output.

UTILITY
Good Hands - Just because we need a point.
Perserverence - 4% may not like seem a lot, but it does help.
Awareness - Level up at a quicker rate to dominate and push faster.
Utility Master - 15% increased buff duration. Always a good thing.

Skill Sequence

I max out Demacian Standard first, followed by Dragon Strike and then Golden Aegis while putting points into Cataclysm when possible.

Martial Cadence (Passive) - Jarvan IV's first attack on his target deals 10% of the target's current health as bonus magic damage, caps at 400 damage. This effect cannot occur on the same target for 6 seconds.

This is what makes Jarvan so good early game. 8-10% of your current health is quite a lot. Add this with Demacian Standard and Dragon Strike and there goes almost half their health in one go early game.

A somewhat good harassing tool that I see other Jarvan players use and max out first. In my opinion though, it's not the best thing to max out first. I always see them go for a combo, but max out Q first and then take massive damage coming back. NOT what you want. Not worth it in my eyes to deal a little bit more extra damage just to recieve more damage than you already should be getting to begin with.

A very good skill to use when initiating a fight. Upon activating, you get bonus health plus a 5 second AoE slow that will surely keep squishies from moving away from you. You max this skill last however. You're positioning yourself for a team fight and you should be targetting the squishy. The initial 15% slow should be enough for the moment.

This skill is the skill to max out first. Why? It gives you up bonus attack speed and armor as a passive, deals damage and on acitvation, grants its bonuses to your allies. Why wouldn't you max this skill out first? Especially if you're laning with someone and you get into a 2v2 brawl? That already helps support not only yourself, but your ally pushing you even harder. Also, should you get to their turret, place the Demacian Standard somewhere behind you so you both get the benefits of less minion damage and faster turret destruction.

Cataclysm - Jarvan IV heroically leaps to an enemy champion, dealing 200 / 350 / 500 (+1.50 per bonus attack damage) physical damage and creating a circle of impassable terrain around them for a 3.5 second duration. Jarvan IV can destroy the area by activating it again. Champions can still leave or enter the area by using teleport abilities.

Okay, this skill is a bit hard to master. You could easily stop enemies from escaping, use to help focus fire someone that you guys need to kill or just group up the enemies just so you can unleash your cc's on them. Any of those could also backfire. You could accidentally make it harder for your team to persue the rest of the bruised up enemies, you could be focus fired if you gather 2 or more enemies since they may have no other choice or they could use something that allows them to jump over terrain such as a flash, Pantheon's stun, Kassidin's Ulti, Gragas' belly thing, so it's best to kind of use it after a team fight has finsihed to aid with an escape or help chase down a person limping away or possibly a group. Either way, it's easy to use, but hard to master. Takes practice, but you'll get it down.

There are 2 main skill combos that I use:

1. Demacian Standard --> Dragon Strike --> Auto Attack --> Golden Aegis --> (Cataclysm:) This is the basic combo that I use when playing Jarvan. Demacian standard on or behind the enemy, preferably on for added damage, Dragon Strike to the Demacian Standard pulling you to and knocking the enemy champ up closer to them, attack to proc the passive and Golden Aegis to keep them from getting away and landing a few more hits on them. This combo is very powerful and will make your presence known early game. Cataclysm is in () because it's optional if you want to keep them from getting away or just looking to get that kill.

2. Demacian Standard (whiff) --> Dragon Strike (whiff) --> Cataclysm: Use this to finish off your opponent. Once you've pretty much gotten their health down to a point where even the biggest noob will stay back because they don't want to die, that's where this combo comes into play. The Demacian Standard into dragon Strike combo is so fast they won't usually see it coming. How it works is where it says "whiff," it means your going to miss. The reason for this is because you're using that combo to close the distance faster to land a Cataclysm, trapping and finishing them off. Please take note to look and seeif they have an ability that can get them out of Cataclysm. If they do, auto attack once Cataclysm hits and cast Ignite, then proceed to kill them with auto attacks again. If they do flash out or something, that initial auto attack that should proc the passive plus the ignite should finisht hem off unless the have Summoner Spell Heal or something to heal with.

Items

All right. Getting into the items section, you may have looked at my item purchase sequence. As stated above, you buy a Doran's Ring, 2 Heath Pots, Berserkers Grieves, BF Sword, Phage and Atma's Impaler.

You don't have to start off with a Doran's Ring. You can always opt for a Doran's Shield or Sword also. Here's how I go about deciding:
Doran's Ring: If I know I'm going to be able to out power and push the enemy back and possibly get kills along the way with little to no trouble, I'll go for a Doran's Ring. It also helps with giving your Demacian Standard a bit of a damage boost.
Doran's Sword: If I feel like I'm going to be able to harass them, but not escape without some bit of punishment for harassing, I'll go with a Doran's Sword.
Doran's Shield: If I know that I'm going to have trouble in my lane and harassing is probably not in my best interest due to extreme punishment if I do, a Doran's Shield would be a good choice for me to use.

If and when you have to go back , you can buy two Health Pots as needed if you think you need it. Other than that, you keep farming minions and try to get kills to save up for the next three items on the list in that order: Boots, BF Sword, Phage and Atma's Impaler. This will complete your core build.

Recommended Items
Of course you're going to want to branch off into one of the three BF Sword upgrades and upgrade your Phage for a Frozen Mallet, but not until you fill up the next two slots for your item build. Those two items should be filled up with Defensive items that give you Health and the desired Armor/Resistance according to the enemy team. Those items are:

Armor
Sunfire Cape
Randuin's Omen

Magic Resistance
Banshees Veil

These will greatly increase your survivability and work with your Atma's Impaler passive giving you some added AD. I've never really chosen the Sunfire Cape when I had to choose if there was a balance between AD and AP to defend against. The Sunfire Cape seemed a bit inferior for Jarvan because of how I play Jarvan in team fights, which I will explain later. Also, you're going to be in the middle of team fights constantly making Randuin's a better choice especially when you're going up against other DPS and Ranged Carries. If they are heavy on AP, you can probably forget about the Armor items that give you Health and go for something like a Force of Nature or a Quicksilver sash if they have a lot of disables.

Remember, you don't always have to follow a build exactly the way it is. You're going to have to make adjustments based on the enemy team all the time. For example, if you're facing Jax, you might consider a Sword of the Divine to stop him from procing an AoE Stun every four seconds or if there's a beefy team ahead of you, Mardreds Bloodrazor may be needed.

Team Work

Team Fights
Working with your team you should be one of those guys that initiates. Usually you should wait for the tank to initiate, then you come up next after they have focused the tank. One good example is with Malphite. Stay behind Malphite and wait until he initiates with his ulti. After he rams as much champs as he can with his ulti, you come up with your combo and go towards the squishy (Nuke or ranged carry) to take them out. Then you and your team start focusing who needs to be focused and take them out piece by piece.

Ganking
Jarvan is a great ganker. Look for champs that are pretty beaten up and hide in the bush. Let them know what's going on because they won't always see you come up. Ping to let them know you're coming then come out with a combo to knock them in the air. If you know you can't knock them in the air because they're too far away and they'll probably see it coming, you can just use the combo to close the distance then ulti their face to keep them from getting away while your team gets there and helps you finish them off.

Lane Partner
When Laning, Jarvan works best with a disabler of some sort such as Taric or someone with a good early initiate like Xin so that Jarvan can land his combo. With these type of partners, you're both at pretty high chances to get a kill so keep the pressure on them.

Mid Lane
If for some odd reason you are the Mid Laner, don't worry, you are able to get the job done. I AM IN NO WAY ADVISING THAT YOU GO MID, but it's possible. You'll die as fast as every other champ out there, but in a 1v1 situation this early, your damage output for exceeds theirs. As long as you stay near your Ranged Creeps and attack the Creeps that approach them, their ranged carries have to get in range of your combo, therefore eating up almost half health damage in exchange for some gold they tried to last hit out of a minion. Just combo 1 then back off, wait for CD then repeat. In the end though as you get to Summoner Level 30, *MOST* mid laners won't fall for it or will kite you to death, so I wouldn't advise going to mid unless you have to.

Summary

This brings an end to my build/guide: Jarvan IV: LoL High School Bully. I want to give special thanks to Hugenjpana's Jarvan guide. I kind of stole the skill description from his guide because LoL home site didn't have it up yet and I also reworded it a bit. I also want to give a big thanks to Riot for making such a great game. Keep up the good work. I hope this guide helps many players wanting to learn to play Jarvan and as always, please try out the build/guide before voting and give constructive feed back on what I can do to improve it for you all. Good luck Summoners :)

(Side Note:) If anyone can tell me how to use the pictures to show what skill is what and such, it would be much appreciated.

League of Legends is a team based, real time strategy game set in a mythical world of swords & magic where epic battles decide the fate of mystical nations. Game players take on the role of a Summoner who conjures and controls champions to fight for them at the Institute of War. During game play champions gain experience and items to enhance their skills and abilities. How players develop and play their champions can be the difference between a crushing defeat or a glorious victory!